Bringing Positive Changes in Your Life
Let’s welcome September with four quotes:
All at once, summer collapsed into fall. -Oscar Wilde
And then the sun took a step back, the leaves lulled themselves to sleep and Autumn was awaken. – Raquel Franco
September days are here. With summer’s best of weather and autumn’s best of cheer. – Helen Hunt Jackson
September tries its best to have us forget summer. – Bernard Williams
Do you know any other quotes on September? Which ones?
Towards the end of the 19th century, a group of economists from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland studied the social inequalities in Europe. Analysing the tax data of several European countries, they found out that in each of them about 20% of the population owned 80% of the wealth.
This discovery was a real springboard for the career of an economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who gave his name to a principle, the Pareto principle, also known as the law of 20-80.
Some examples of the application of this principle:
• to optimize production, some industries in Japan focus on 20% of the causes that generate 80% of production problems;
• customer services of most companies focus on 20% of customers who generate 80% of turnover;
• finance professionals agree that 20% of their investments represent 80% of the benefits.
What does this principle make us understand? The message of Pareto’s principle is that we need to focus on 20% of the actions that lead us to 80% of the results.
In practice, we must focus on high value-added actions because they are the ones that make us move forward.
This principle is very important because it deals with a precious resource: time.
To avoid being stuck on a goal and slowly losing sight of it, it would be beneficial to use this perspective (20-80).
However, how can we identify what are the essential things to our goal? Moreover, how to choose high valuable actions?
Try to answer these two questions for each action you have planned but are hesitating to take:
1. Is this action vital in moving me towards my goal?
2. Am I the only one who can do this action?
The first question allows you to separate essential actions from those that can wait.
The second allows you to identify what are the actions that others can do in your place and that, therefore, you can delegate.
Once this is done, you will know 20% of the actions you need to take to advance towards achieving your goal.
Now you could estimate the time required for each action but it is not ideal, because you would end up putting it on your “to-do-list” and you could continue to shift the priority order. Therefore, in the end you would have wasted some time.
Once again you have to ask yourself some questions:
1. What problems are stopping you from really moving forward with your goals?
2. What do you need to do to solve these problems?
3. What are the elements that allow you to understand if the problems have been solved?
You will be surprised to see how well these questions work. The 20-80 rule allows you to focus on actions that have a visible and direct impact. You will see that they will soon become a habit to you, and that you will use them every time you feel stuck with something.
Do you think that the Pareto’s principle is useful for progressing with your goals?
When I hear about curfews, dark times come to my mind, times of war. Actually we have been fighting a war against Covid since March this year. There are no bombs, we don’t have to be evacuated, we can eat every day because there are enough food supplies. But the curfew has changed our habits, most probably also those related to meal times.
From North to South of Europe we eat at different times. Soon in the north, later in the south. Maybe you are invited to dinner by someone and the curfew forces you to eat earlier because then you have to go home. Or you eat later because you finish work late and don’t have time to buy something for dinner, or to stop by in a restaurant. The restaurants are closed, they only offer take-away service and you must go back home within the time set by the curfew.
A friend from Paris, before the city was put into total lockdown, had to return home by 9 p.m. We know that Paris is a big city and people often use public transport, which is very efficient. To be home by 9 p.m., she had to take the subway by 8:30 pm at the latest and therefore she was eating later than her previous habits. And she began to sleep badly.
If you make an appointment before the curfew begins, you may feel stressed out because you will have to rush to get home on time. Perhaps it would be better to stay at home and respect the government’s directions and limit our social contacts. But sometimes you want to be out for a while, to meet some friends.
The effects of the curfew are not only on your social life, but also on your health as a result of adapting to a new pace of life and changing your routine.
The new schedule imposed by the curfew may have advantages, for example, you stop working earlier, go home earlier and have dinner earlier. For example, you arrive home at 7 p.m., have dinner between 8 p.m. and 8.30 p.m., go to bed around 11 p.m. and get up at 7 a.m. the next day.
This would be optimal for your health. Indeed, you would better synchronize with your internal, external environmental and external social biological clocks (time).
Internal time is what marks your endogenous rhythm, which helps you sleep at night, stay awake during the day and eat at the right time for you.
External environmental time is determined by the alternation of the phases of light and dark generated by the solar cycle.
External social time can alter these balances. If your working schedule, lunch, dinner and leisure are not suitable to your biological type (chronotype) you could enter a phase of temporal disruption that may cause several health problems, like insomnia.
Our ancestors got up with the light and went to sleep with the dark. This rhythm allowed for adequate production of melatonin (the hormone that regulates sleep), which allowed for a perfect balance between internal time and external time.
The habit of eating around 9:30 p.m. or even later goes against these natural cycles and makes it more difficult to rest well. A large dinner ending around midnight could cause difficult digestion at a time when the body should be resting instead.
It is therefore recommended to finish dinner at least two hours before going to bed to avoid poor quality sleep and an awakening marked by fatigue, irritability and low cognitive performance.
If you follow the biological rhythm of your body, you will have a big improvement in your overall health!
Do you think the curfew has made you change some of your habits?
You miss the train and on the quay you meet the love of your life. You receive money in the exact moment you need it: this is the magic of synchronicity; they are coincidences that sometimes leave you speechless and let you see a new path.
What Is Synchronicity?
Psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung brought us the term “synchronicity,” which literally means “falling together in time.” Synchronicity describes the surprise that occurs when a thought in the mind is mirrored by an external event to which it has no apparent causal connection.
Read this story told by Jung to understand what synchronicity is about.
A young woman of high education and serious demeanour entered Jung’s office. Jung could see that her quest for psychological change was doomed unless he was able to succeed in softening her rationalist shell with “a somewhat more human understanding.” He needed the magic of coincidence. He asked for it, searched his surroundings for it. He remained attentive to the young woman, while hoping something unexpected and irrational would turn up.
As she described a golden scarab—a costly piece of jewellery—she had received in a dream the night before, he heard a tapping on the window. He looked and saw a gold-green glint. Jung opened the window to coincidence. He plucked the scarab beetle out of the air. The beetle, closely resembling to the golden scarab, was just what he needed—or just what she needed. “Here is your scarab,” he said to the woman, as he handed her a link between her dreams and the real world.
A synchronic event goes beyond mere coincidence because it has a transforming power, which marks a before and after in your personal history.
In order to notice synchronicity, you need to develop attention and spirit of observation.
If you begin to notice with curiosity what happens to you during the day, your everyday life would become a joyful space of possibility and opportunity.
Hidden or obvious, these ephemeral messages are so precious that they deserve our full attention. You will see that then, the more you notice these significant coincidences, the more they multiply and will help you get out of your routine. Moreover, you will be headed for something new. By changing your perspective, you will also be able to make your reality move.
Try one of these games and see what feelings you get.
Here is the first one that is called Bibliomancy.
Here is another one, that I call “The Sidewalk Observation Game”. Even with this game you can get an unexpected message by putting you in touch with a symbol or situation.
Start by writing down a question. Walk with your senses in full alert and notice all the details. For example, catch some elements of a conversation between two people you cross during your walk, read an advertisement, look at a graffiti or a newspaper left on a bench. These are signs that can help you find the answer to your question.
Even slips or dysgraphia can be a clue to explore. For example, I often write massage instead of message. I think I may need to get a massage …
These tips come to you so that you can open doors and not close them. They offer you the opportunity to enjoy meaningful experiences with enthusiasm and enjoyment and to abandon the plans established by your ego.
In this way, you have the opportunity to connect to the collective unconscious because you adhere to positive and non-blocking beliefs. The more you pay attention to synchronicity, the more your neurological and emotional circuits are positively stimulated and they create new behavioural patterns, installs beneficial habits that connect you with the consciousness of the universe.
The time of synchronicity
As the Greek root of this word shows, synchronicity refers to time (syn means meeting and chronos means time). The ancient Greeks conceived synchronicity in three distinct ways: the chronos, which corresponds to a linear flow; the aion, or the endless cycles; the kairos, that is the right moment to act.
In the Greek mythology there is the winged god Kairos. When Kairos passes by there are three possibilities:
In practice, synchronicity is telling you carpe diem, namely seize the moment.
What do you do when Kairos passes by next to you ?
Nostalgia is a shield against existential challenges. Evoking positive experiences and feelings from the past can help you cope better with the present and the future.
Nostalgia is a rear view mirror that reflects a particular feeling of a time or place or an emotion that happened in the past. It could be the memory of your first love, a yellowed photograph found by chance, or an object that reminds you of something. The Internet can help make you nostalgic. With one click you can find, for example, the soundtrack of a pleasant moment you lived.
Today, experts tell us that nostalgia is a complex emotion, above all, but not always, positive, which can give you greater sensitivity and can help you understand the present.
The word nostalgia was invented in 1680 by a student (Johannes Hofer) from the University of Basel who combined the Greek word nóstos (homecoming) and algia (suffering). He described it as the pain that the Swiss soldiers felt in battle and that they wanted to go home.
Current studies distinguish nostalgia from melancholy because it has a stimulating effect and does not cause symptoms of illness, rather it tries to fight them.
Could it be said that nostalgia is a source of resilience and wellbeing?
Researchers from the University of Southampton (UK) have observed that nostalgia is a vital component of mental health that motivates us and increases our self-esteem.
Nostalgia also represents a reservoir of emotions that you can consciously access and which you unconsciously use in your daily life to reinforce the feelings of your past that help you cope with the present and the future.
But remember that the past can be recalled but cannot come back. Nostalgia does not give you back what you have lost but it helps you to better manage the life you are living.
Do you think nostalgia helps you with managing your life?
When the holidays are over and you start working or studying again, you want to commit to getting back in shape.
Maybe you ate too much and did little physical activity but it is normal, you have been on holidays!
It could also be an opportunity to take stock of the resolutions taken at the beginning of the year and see where you are.
Often, however, among working or studying and other daily activities, you do not have neither time nor motivation.
How would it be following a program that helps you in achieving your objectives now?
Here are some ideas to help you stick to an easy-to-maintain schedule.
Small daily efforts
Decision taken, this year you will try to use less the car, both because it is a super ecological action and therefore good for the planet, and because you will be forced to find other means of transport to get around. You will also strengthen your body without realizing it.
Ready to include some physical activity in your daily life?
2. Stop taking the elevator if you live or work on a relatively low floor.
3. Get around by bike or on foot.
4. Don’t have your shopping delivered to you, do it yourself.
5. Go and buy a sandwich at lunchtime on foot. It allows you to relax a bit, change air and walk.
6. Go for walks of at least 30 minutes at least once a week (I walk at least 30 minutes every day, but I suffer from the restless legs syndrome – RLS). You can walk on the street, in the nature, on the beach, alone or with friends. The important thing is to walk.
7. Buy a Pilates ball and sit on it to watch your favourite TV series, movie, or whatever you like.
As you can see nothing strange and impossible! Start introducing one habit at a time and you will soon find your shape again with a minimum effort. To help you out, you can use an app or a bracelet that monitors your activity like a real coach.
Little efforts at home
We know that sometimes it is hard to find time to go to the gym. Why not doing some physical activity at home then? You can buy accessories that allow you to do some gym without leaving your place, such as electro-stimulators, vibrating platforms or abdominal belts, which tone the muscles by causing contractions. You can also follow some exercises online, YouTube offers them of all kinds. You can do Yoga to relax the body without forgetting the muscles, meditation and relaxation, perfect for learning to breathe deeply and to use breathing as a method to fight stress and anxiety. 10 minutes every morning when you wake up will be good for you. Find a trainer you like, subscribe to their channel and receive notifications every time they upload a new video.
Small efforts on the plate
Holidays are sometimes synonymous with excess. To get back in shape you need to fill up on vitamins. Start the day with a smoothie or fresh fruit juice. Then continue with a healthy, non-fat lunch of seasonal vegetables. It will help you regain your shape.
You can also drink a glass of warm water in the morning on an empty stomach to stimulate metabolism, detoxify the body and facilitate digestion. Add some lemon and it will be tasty.
So, are you ready for this little revolution?
I look forward August with impatience as for me it represents the top of summer time, that is my favourite period of the year. July prepares myself to August that comes full of expectations and good intentions.
However, at the end of the summer I find myself dealing with what I have actually achieved and I am not always happy with the results.
It happens that often my expectations are misaligned with reality and this causes me frustration and distress that reaches its top at the end of the summer. The idea of not having enjoyed the summer period as I wanted and the thought of the “going back to work” around the corner might turn the last days of vacation into moments of anxiety and suffering.
The August melancholy is known as “August Blues”, the boredom and the dissatisfaction that may become a real malaise of the season.
Therefore, this year I decided to anticipate it and I identified four suggestions so to avoid being overwhelmed by it:
What about you? Have you ever experienced the August Blues?
A young boy went to an old teacher to learn martial arts. That teacher was one of the best teachers in the country at that time.
“Teacher, can I be the best martial artist in the country if I trained under you?” asked the student.
“Certainly …” replies the teacher.
“How many years would it take?”
“About ten years.“
“That’s too long. If I practice with you daily, how many years would it take?”
“Twenty years.”
“If I train with you three times a day on each day, how many years would it take?“
“Thirty years.“
“How could it be … If I am training longer, it must be shortened.” the student asked with wonder.
“You are watching your final goal with one eye. So, how could you go along your journey with one single eye only?”
What would you learn from this story? Let me know!
Crisbie Coach